Sermons on 2 Timothy 4:2

… I'll tell you. The Bible tells me in 2 Timothy 4.2, my assignment is to preach the word. This is my assignment, to preach the word. My calling is to preach God's word, not to respond to every headline. does not mean that I won't address difficult issues. I hope that this series makes that obvious to you. But rather than always responding to what's going on in the world, my goal is to prayerfully and consistently teach you God's word to help you build what I would call a biblical foundation or a biblical worldview or a biblical mindset before the next headline hits, before the next crisis or controversy comes our way. And so if I do comment on one tragedy and not another, does it mean that I don't care about the other one? And the answer is, of course not. And I'm gonna tell you from my perspective, and I stand by this, silence isn't always indifference. Sometimes it's wisdom. This may disappoint some of you. …

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… To those of us who are called to preach and teach the Bible, Scripture says in 2 Timothy 4.2, preach the Word, be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not, patiently correct, rebuke, encourage your people with good teaching. Then Paul goes on to say, for the time will come when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They'll follow their own desires and look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear. So our focus at this church for 50 years now has been on teaching the Word of God. We offer theology without apology. Pretty much whatever we're doing, we're gonna get around to opening up the Bible and see what it has to say. That is our focus. That will always be our focus. Now, that is not always the focus. I'm glad you agreed. That's not always the focus. Some churches are focused more on worship. They may be focused more on having an emotional experience. And then other churches are focused perhaps on entertainment. …

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… who subvert whole households, wherefore rebuke them sharply. Titus 2, these things speak, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. 2 Timothy 4, preach the word, be instant in season, and out of season, reprove, rebuke. Now, you can do it nicely. 1 Timothy 5, rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father and younger men as brethren. What does entreat mean? It doesn't mean being silent. It just means you're speaking the truth in love. You're speaking the truth. You're not being silent. You're speaking, but you're doing it in love, right? You're respectful. And so they have a woke tactic, and it's to guilt trip Christians into being more Christian than Christ. You say, what? They say, yeah, if you're really a Christian, you will be silent while we teach your children something that Jesus would never teach the children. I mean, would Jesus teach the trans agenda? We know what Jesus taught in Matthew 19. He who made them at the beginning made them male and female. And so they're saying, if you're really Christian, you will be silent and give your tacit approval to us teaching something to children that Jesus would never teach to children. So in other words, if you're really Christian, you won't act like Christ. …

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2 Timothy chapter 4. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort. with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. just a brief prayer, an old Anglican prayer. Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us. For Jesus' sake we ask it. Amen. Well, to come to an opportunity like this is to recognize that my responsibility, as with others who've had the privilege of this pulpit, is not so much to come and try and introduce one another to things we have never known, but rather to exercise a ministry of reminder, so that we remind one another of things that we must never, ever forget. And there is a sense in which these first five verses that I've just read encapsulate Paul's concern for the ongoing ministry of the gospel. He has, as you know, urged Timothy in chapter 2, as we heard yesterday, to make sure that the baton of faith and gospel …

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discharge all the duties of your ministry. The goal for us is sound doctrine. And to understand what we're talking about. And today we're looking at the doctrine of salvation. And that's why we're calling this collection Jesus Saves. We took our graphic from Big Bethel AME Church. Does anybody know about it? This is an Atlanta landmark. If you didn't know, when you're going downtown on the connector, if you're going southbound, look to the right. If you're coming northbound, look to the left, and you'll see Jesus saves right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. And that's where we're kicking off today to talk about the doctrine of salvation. More specifically, and you're going to want to take some photos along the way because a bunch of information is coming really fast. Going to have a great heart in it, but head and heart today as we talk about soteriology. I just thought I would pull one back out from the old seminary days. Soteriology, let's just say it together. Soteriology. What is that? Ology, we know, is in theology, is the study of something, and sotere here is salvation. So soteriology is the official word, if you're in seminary, for the study of salvation. So welcome to grad school, everyone. You're getting a little extra today. It is theology dealing with salvation, especially as affected by Jesus Christ. That's according to Merriam-Webster. That's what soteriology is. And I want us to be excited about the doctrine of salvation. Now, I know today that I'm speaking to people …

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… them. If we listen to Paul in 2 Timothy 4.2, preach the word, reprove, rebuke. You don't ignore the deeds of darkness. You expose them. That's your responsibility. You expose them for what they are. You expose them to the people who are the darkness. You warn them. You terrify them for the consequences of what they're doing. And in the church, you confront it. Matthew 18, discipline. If anybody's in sin, you go to that person. You take two or three witnesses. You tell the church. You expose sin. The church has to expose sin, not accommodate it, not make people engaged in the unfruitful deeds of darkness comfortable. That's not what the Spirit of God did in Acts chapter 5, when Ananias and Sapphira, who lied to the Holy Spirit, were executed in front of the entire church by God Himself, who slew them in the public service of the church so people would learn not to tolerate sin. We have that responsibility to expose evil. Now, what does that mean? …

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